Posts Tagged ‘Lottery’

October 23, 2014 · 11:57 PM ET

Commissioner Adam Silver got it partly right in noting the perception problem with the lottery, about how losing teams feel pressure from fans “to somehow underperform” to get the best picks in June and accelerate the elevator ride back up. That is definitely an issue. (Not as much as a weak owner and front office that would make basketball decisions based on public opinion, but, yes, a problem.)

What no one seemed to hit on, though, as the Board of Governors voted down dramatic changes to the lottery Wednesday was how the proposal was exactly about perception. It was about soothing, not fixing.

The system isn’t flawed because of tanking. The system is flawed because the team with the worst record does not get the No. 1 pick, and rarely does the second-worst move into that coveted position. Since the change to the current format, the club with the best odds has drawn the winning combination of ping-pong balls three times in 21 lotteries: the 76ers in 1996 (Allen Iverson), the Cavaliers in 2003 (LeBron James) and the Magic in 2004 (Dwight Howard). The next-best odds has moved to the top of the draft once in the 2000s, the Clippers of 2009 (Blake Griffin).

The suggested solution that went before the Board of Governors? Decrease the chances even more.

The proposal got 17 of 30 votes from the Board of Governors, one representative from each franchise, at a meeting in New York, short of the 23 needed for approval. The plan goes back for further review and likely tweaks within the competition committee.

The obvious intent was to discourage tanking — no need to try for losses, the teams were being told, because there is not a good chance it will get you to the top of the order anyway. Which was known anyway. It’s right there in the history books.

Tanking was one of the most oversold storylines of last season, if not the most, without nearly the race to the bottom too many would suggest. The 15-67 Bucks had the worst record in the league, but after making moves in the offseason to get better, not set themselves up for June. The 19-63 76ers — OK, apart from them. The Jazz had the worst record in the West, but improved after the first month or so, when a 1-14 start provided the perfect opportunity to cash out early. The Lakers were second worst, though obviously not out of preference. The Kings could have kept the roster in place, but traded for Rudy Gay in a win-now move.

The league went from years of no proposals moving to a final vote, and rarely so much as a public suggestion from one of the teams about fixing the problem, to possibly ratifying a jolting set of rules. There was such a whiplash effect that it may have been one of the reasons the new idea failed to gain the necessary two-thirds approval. While the need to deal with the image problem of tanking was obvious, with Philadelphia the current poster child, the result would have been to further penalize the teams that earned the spot through more-conventional means.

“I think we all recognize that we need to find the right balance between creating the appropriate incentives on one hand for teams to, of course, win, and on the other hand allowing what is appropriate rebuilding and a draft to work as a draft should, in which the worst performing teams get the highest picks in the draft, and we’ve tinkered with the draft lottery several times over the years,” Silver said. “I don’t necessarily disagree with the way it works now.”

He added: “I’d say from a personal standpoint, what I’m most concerned about is the perception out there right now. Frankly the pressure on a lot of our teams, even from their very fans, to somehow underperform because it’s in some people’s view the most efficient and quickest way to get better, so I think that’s a corrosive perception out there. Whether it’s the case, I’m frankly not sure. I think sometimes perception becomes reality in this league. There seems to be a certain group-think among general managers in terms of what the best ways are to build teams, and so it was a fascinating discussion [surrounding the vote] and I think a very appropriate discussion for the board.”

July 16, 2014 · 8:27 PM ET

LAS VEGAS — The NBA is weighing dramatic changes to the lottery intended to further deter tanking, Grantland.com reported Wednesday, noting the shift could take effect as soon as the 2015 drawing to determine the draft order.

The proposal, different than the so-called Wheel plan that received attention early last season, calls for at least the four teams with the worst record in the league to have the same chance at landing No. 1 in the ping-pong drawing. While the odds are still open to revision from the current 11 percent, according to the Grantland story by Zach Lowe citing anonymous sources, the numbers would decrease beginning with the club with the fifth-worst finish.

The odds for the team with the best record among the lottery entrants would increase, though, a sign the league wants to give franchises scheduled to pick later a greater chance to jump to near the top on lottery night. The new terms under consideration call for a 2-percent chance to go from 14th to first, the report says, compared to .5 percent in the 2014 drawing.

The suggested plan also calls for the ping-pong balls to determine the order of the first six selections, a change from the process in place of the drawing for the top three, with teams then falling in order based on worst record.

League officials here for summer league and key meetings, including the Board of Governors gathering the day before, made it clear Wednesday that the new proposal is only in the discussion stages. The Competition Committee has not approved anything on the subject, a necessary step before it gets sent to the Board of Governors to be voted on, with the likelihood that whatever makes it out of committee would almost certainly be ratified by the Board.

NBA.com suggested a series of changes after the Cavaliers won the lottery for the second year in a row and third time in the last four tries, continuing the trend of the team with the worst record rarely getting the top pick. That fact should discourage tanking on its own. Not only is there nothing in the Grantland report that suggests the league will implement rules to stop that trend, the suggested new direction would increase the odds of teams that finished with better records, immediately after Cleveland won with a 1.7-percent chance, ninth-best, at No. 1.

Among the NBA.com suggestions in May:

*Create tiers. Hold a lottery for the teams with the worst three records to determine one through three, draw another set of ping-pong balls for the next four, then the next four, and then the next three. Or some similar combination. But no one should go from ninth-best odds to No. 1.

*Make the lottery odds based on the last two finishes, maybe longer. No one would purposely be bad two seasons in a row for what would still be the possibility of the top choice, especially when it would be more difficult to know for sure two years out who would be in the draft and who stays out. For a chance — a chance — at No. 1 when the numbers show the payoff almost never happens. The obvious drawback is that it hurts teams in transition and genuinely in need of a prime selection right away, as was the case, for example, of the Celtics going from a final playoff push with a veteran team to splitting with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to begin the next generation. But a two-season body of work is an accurate read on a franchise, not about dealing with injuries or its ability to commit to stockpiling ping-pong balls.

May 21, 2013 · 10:52 PM ET

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NEW YORK — Before Tuesday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers were among the two or three Lottery teams most likely to make the playoffs next year. They have a budding superstar, other young players who will only get better, and a new (and old) coach who will get them to improve on the end of the floor where they’ve been particularly dreadful that last few years.

2013 Lottery results

Pick

Team

1.

Cleveland

2.

Orlando

3.

Washington

4.

Charlotte

5.

Phoenix

6.

New Orleans

7.

Sacramento

8.

Detroit

9.

Minnesota

10.

Portland

11.

Philadelphia

12.

Toronto (to OKC)

13.

Dallas

14.

Utah

After Tuesday night, if you didn’t already have them there (some of us did), you’d have to move the Cavs to the top of the list. Thanks to the results of Tuesday’s Draft lottery, Cleveland will add the No. 1 pick of the 2013 Draft to and young and talented core of Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters and Tristan Thompson.

A month ago, Mike Brown was rehired to fix that defense. The Cavs are the only team to rank in the bottom five in defensive efficiency each of the last three years, but ranked in the top five on that end a couple of times under Brown (and with the best player in the world).

A month from now, Cleveland will add another piece to the puzzle. Two No. 1 picks in three years is a good way to ensure both short and long-term success.

“It’s going to mean a lot,” Cavs owner Dan Gilbert said Tuesday, “because if we can pick the right guy to fit into the young core that we have now, we can be a great team for many, many years.”

Before the lottery, there was no clear No. 1 pick. No LeBron James or Anthony Davis. And there was no Big Two on the level of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. Among the top four or five talents, there’s a guy at each position, and none is a can’t miss prospect.

But with Cleveland drawing the top selection and already having Irving and Waiters in their backcourt, Kentucky’s Nerlens Noel, a 6-foot-11 power forward, jumps to the top of the list. The Cavs have Thompson, Tyler Zeller (taken with the No. 17 pick last year) and the oft-injured Anderson Varejao up front, but every good team needs at least three quality big men.

The issue, of course, is that Noel won’t be available until at least Christmas, still recovering from ACL surgery in his left knee in March. And as we’ve seen in the past, training camp is a critical part of a rookie’s orientation to the league.

The Orlando Magic, who finished with a league-worst 20-62 record, will draft second, and they can use help at every position and on both ends of the floor. They have a handful of young players, but none is really a franchise anchor. Their best pieces are on the frontline, however, so they should be happy with any number of options in the backcourt, including Michigan point guard Trey Burke and Kansas shooting guard Ben McLemore.

In discussing the possibilities, Magic coach Jacque Vaughn talked about building a culture as much as acquiring talent.

“I trust our general manager and our scouts and their ability to find the right person who’s going into fit in our locker room,” Vaughn said.

Magic general manager Rob Hennigan, another descendant from the San Antonio Spurs’ management tree, had a similar outlook, saying that he wants to continue “to build the momentum with what we want to be about, what our identity is, what our values are, and really staying true to that.”

Like the Cavs, the Washington Wizards have a young and talented backcourt. So they will probably look to go big with the third pick, though general manager Ernie Grunfeld indicated Tuesday that he’ll look for the best player available.

“In this league, players win, regardless of what position they’re at,” Grunfeld said. “We’ll take the best player that we feel will help us, in the short term and the long term.”